From staff reports Oklahoma Cotton Council Vice Chairman Mark Nichols spoke last week about Oklahoma’s cotton field conditions and sustainable farming.
Nichols, an Altus cotton farmer, said cotton conditions have been bleak in most areas across the state. However, in Tillman County and the Carnegie area of Caddo County, fields under pivots look good, and due to some extra rainfall, the Elk City area of Beckham County is also doing fine.
“Some of the cotton in my area – dryland cotton – looked pretty good,” he said. “ The plants look pretty good, but when you go out there and look, there is just nothing there. It is just so ho t that it didn’t do anything.”
Compared to 2023’s crop, Nichols believes irrigated cotton will be better this year, despite how sparse it may seem.
“We had some underground moisture going into this year that we didn’t have last year,” he said. “It’s really amazing what just a lit tle bit of in-ground moisture will do as you are going into a crop year. I think that is why the crop looked a little better overall this year than last, but it is still no t very good in Oklahoma or west Texas.”
Although cotton variety tests have been conducted, it doesn’t grow without water.
“The dryland variety tests are all being shredded so we won’t learn much from them,” he noted. “We will learn some things from our irrigated varieties. Some of those may have done a lit tle bit better than others under these stressed conditions.”
Cotton Incorporated, “a notfor- profit company providing the resources and research needed to help companies develop and market superior, innovative, and profitable cotton products,” its website states, sponsors a sustainability conference every couple of years. This year’s conference was held in La Jolla, California. Around 50 importers attended, while five national producers were also invited to speak on sustainability, regenerative agriculture, and how those differ by location.
“When I got up to talk, I said, ‘You are going to hear a very similar story from all of us,’” Nichols said. “We all were no-till sustainable and regen certified, but I don’t know any of those producers who were doing those practices to f it into a box for the importers or retailers.”
Studies show that organic cotton tends to be more marketable for a variety of reasons including how many consumers feel about cotton’s environmental benefits.
“Buyers want to hear our stories,” Nichols said. They want “To learn how you cut back on chemicals and why you have been able to do that. We do it because that’s the only way that we can survive. To cut back on the number of times that w e cross a field and the amount of chemicals we use, being sustainable in no-till practice for so long, we can now do a lot of those things.”